One Nation Getting Bigger...

C&L talk about the One Nation March:

Preliminary satellite estimates put the crowd size at 175,000 to 200,000 at about noon EST. By the calculations of Bachman/Beck, et al., that would mean at least 1,000,000, non?

If I were Glenn Beck, I'd also worry that around 260,000 people have already RSVP'd for Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's rally. Ha!

One Nation Rally

Laziness, geography and general sulkiness directed at the liberal establishment stopped me attending the One Nation rally today. But I'd sure love to have seen George Clinton, surrounded by Americans of all creeds and colors, wind up the event with "One Nation Under a Groove". That must be a hell of a memory to keep. (Ted Nugent cranking out 'Cat Scratch Fever' surrounded by fat white teabaggers on scooters? Not so much...)

But, sad to say, I had the exact same pea-brained partisan thoughts about the march as Right Pundits: What are the scores? How many people turned up for the One Nation rally? Say they:

"Unlike Glenn Beck’s rally where over 500,000 people gathered to hear from speakers like Sarah Palin, about 150,000 appear to have assembled to bash Capitalism and advocate more gun control."

Good news no doubt for progressives. How so? Because Right Pundits claim half a million for Glenn Beck's 9-12 do when reality estimates only 60-70,000. So even if they are somehow right about the One Nation rally numbers, we have them beat by a margin of 50 - 60%.

Yeh, I know, it's pretty childish to bicker and compete about crowd numbers. But they started it!

Finding Common Ground

Ohio Tea Party candidate Tom Ganley. It ain't pretty...

I was just reading about the spectacularly corrupt Tea Party candidate for the 13th District of Ohio, Tom Ganley:

Ganley has been accused of sexually assaulting a supporter he met at a tea party rally (he's been sued over 400 times for ethics and business violations).

That's some impressive weaselry from a guy who makes out like he's one of them "new brooms" sent by God to sweep clean DC. Got me wondering whether thoroughly unredeemable sh*ts like Ganley would get anywhere at all if voters paid more attention and didn't let anger distract them. Then I got to wondering how much 'baggers and progressives have in common these days: we're both lashing out blindly and letting anger get the better of us. I'm not usually very charitable to conservatives, particularly of the 'bagger variety. But I'm in a rare mood of equanimity today so here goes...

Sure, I hate what the Tea Party represents: a bunch of rich f*cks like the Koch brothers hoodwinking chickens into voting for Colonel Sanders. But deep down, I know most 'baggers are just regular folks who are genuinely sick and tired of the bullsh*t in DC. Most of them, unlike the special interests laying down the astroturf, are not motivated by white supremacism or the corporatist agenda of shrinking government/omnipotent business. They're just angry people who want change. Hell, to that extent, I'm with them 100%. That's where we libs and progs were in 2008. That's where many of us are again. I'm mad as hell too!

Really, progressives and conservatives have much in common right now. We're both so mad we're ready to lash out at our respective parties and exercise the only real power we have: withholding our support. Conservatives want to kill off the GOP status quo, liberals want to kill off the Dem status quo. Conservatives want to replace the old GOP'ers with new radicals, liberals want to replace the old Dems with... erm... anything with a pulse and a pair of balls. But let's just calm down, let's take a few deep breaths and look at the reality.

Anger is the slutty mom of bad decisions. Anger gives conservtives political beer goggles so that losers like Christine O'Donnell and Carl Paladino start looking like attractive candidates. Anger makes progressives want to take down their own party for betraying us without even pondering the horrors of the alternative. So in short, anger is not a good motivator for deciding the future of the country. Don't vote angry.

Dear 'baggers, think instead: Recognize that voting for Tea Party crazies may be tempting, it might seem like a cathartic way to get back at those cynical, establishment buffoons who've let you down (hell, as a progressive, I can dig that). But following through and actually electing these idiots to office would be tantamount to a suicide bid - just as much as progressives dumping Obama and handing back power to the Reps by default would be suicidal.

Electing Tea Party candidates to clean up? That'd be like releasing rabid raccoons into your house to get rid of mice. So, again, let's all take a time out and think. Enough with the anger already.

Bye Ricky...

That didn't take so long. CNN don't play... now Rick Sanchez is probably the dumbest guy who used to be on TV.

But what sucks majorly is that Sanchez gets fired faster than a scoutmaster in a NAMBLA t-shirt for taking a poke at that ol' "Jew media". But who's firing Limbaugh, Becky and all the other racist clowns who make Sanchez's amateurish anti semitism seem warm and cuddly by comparison?

Is Rick Sanchez The Dumbest Man On TV?

CNN's Rick Sanchez could be a genius. I don't know. He might be a moron. Again, I don't know. But he definitely plays one well on TV. So well that even King übertard Glenn Beck recently called Sanchez "the dumbest man ever on television." Like... wow.

Here's some dumb highlights: Remember when Sanchez got all pissed with a scientist who was talking about a "9-meter drop in ocean levels"? Sanchez asked him what a meter was "in English". Remember when Sanchez called Barack Obama the "cotton-picking president of the United States"? Remember too how Sanchez thought the Galapagos Islands were Hawaii and that Icelend was too cold to have volcanoes?

But Sanchez is sensitive too. He gets ticked off when people like Jon Stewart poke fun at him - as Stewart so often does. On Peter Dominick's radio show yesterday, Sanchez protested Jon Stewart's "bigotry" against him and claimed "[People like Stewart] minimize you, and treat you like you don't matter... I am a complex human being. I am not some moron."

Sanchez then arced into some weird "Protocols of The Elders of Zion" sh*t when Dominick inferred that Stewart's being Jewish precluded him from being a bigot:

I'm telling you that everybody who runs CNN is a lot like Stewart, and a lot of people who run all the other networks are a lot like Stewart, and to imply that somehow they, the people in this country who are Jewish, are an oppressed minority? Yeah.

I'd guess Rick Sanchez should avoid watching The Daily Show on Monday after that. I can't imagine CNN will be best pleased either. Way to prove you're no moron, Ricky!

US Says Sorry For Giving Guatemala The Clap

Says Fox:

The U.S. government apologized Friday for "unethical" and "reprehensible" research conducted in Guatemala more than 60 years ago, after a professor documented how U.S. scientists intentionally infected people in the country with sexually transmitted diseases.

Thought I'd take a walk on the wild side and trawl Fox News' comments section for the most obnoxious response to that story. Enjoy:

"I knew it would be a womyn's studies "professor" who would want to bring this old hash up; these vaginas are good for three things: bashing men; bashing the united states; and bashing western civilization."

It's weird how women piss off so many conserva-goons like that commenter and how almost any situation can be interpreted as a 'battle of the sexes' episode. Damn, can't a guy go round spreading syphilis and ghonnorea without the "vaginas" getting all bent out of shape about it?

Weird...

The European Union Court of Justice has ruled that working fathers in Spain are entitled to two "breastfeeding" breaks throughout the day, just like mothers. What they'll do during these breaks is anyone's guess.

Guns, C*cks N' Texas

Here's a weird but predictable story from Texas:

A Texas bank has created a new rule allowing concealed-handgun owners in the building... "No damn Yankee is going to tell us what to do," said [bank president Ed] Smith. "I got to thinking we have a right to bear arms," said Smith. "People who have a conceal carry license are welcome here with their pistols." The premise is boldly stated on the front door. "Management recognizes the 2nd amendment to the U.S. Constitution," the sign reads.

If you're a "damn Yankee" or any other kinda foreigner, you might think a bank inviting its customers to carry concealed weapons is a little odd. From a common-sense perspective, there isn't much. So what could drive a guy to want to override the natural laws of self-preservation and bring in this crazy rule? How does it make sense?

First off, don't worry, I'm not going to go all anti-gun. There's a clear distinction between gun owners and gun nuts and I recognize that. It's just that some people take things too far into weird and leave you wondering what underlying psychological problem drives their obsession. I know it's corny, but I often wonder if gun crazies secretly like c*ck. There. I said it.

Don't you ever wonder how much sublimated gayness abounds amongst the gun fetishists like the NRA who take the whole thing way out of proportion? How gay-for-guns, how literally queer are guys like Ed Smith? Sorry, but you can't get away from it: Guns are recognized by psychologists as "potent penis symbols". And there are few things a gay guy, closeted or not, likes more than a big, powerful c*ck. Calvin S. Hall writes in "A Cognitive Theory of Dream Symbols":

All of the referents are concrete things, people, or activities, and similarly all of the symbols, as gun for penis, bag for vagina, ploughing for coitus, playing the piano for masturbating, queen for mother, king for father, apple for breast, etc., are concrete things, people, or activities. In short, something concrete, the symbol, is substituted for something else concrete, the referent.

Sure, you can own guns, you can shoot guns, you can even keep them on your nightstand for protection if that makes you sleep easier. That doesn't make you Richard Simmonds in redneck drag. But all them bubbas who talk about little else and spend hour upon hour cleaning and maintaining their guns with loving, masturbatory indulgence? You got to wonder sometimes.

Like, for example, I was reading about "Bohemenian Rhapsody"  yesterday after I wondered idly what the hell that long-ass song was supposed to be about. Interesting trivia fact: some psychologists interpret the song as a metaphorical narrative about Freddie Mercury struggling with and coming to terms with his own sexuality - all told in a suitably flamboyant operatic format:

The narrator explains to his mother that he has "just killed a man", with "a gun against his head" and with that act thrown his life away... Highlighting the phallic nature of guns, Judith Peraino [Cornell University Music Professor] suggests that the song is a "melodrama of homoeroticism".

Like I said, it's corny, but I'm sure some guys play with guns because they can't play with c*cks and they really, really want to. Ain't that a "melodrama of homoeroticism" right there?

If you own a gun and you don't agree with my gay-for-guns theory, maybe laugh a little or call me a liberal douche... fine. But if you own a gun and just the merest suggestion that you could be overcompensating for something makes you want to kill me, just ask yourself if you shouldn't just switch off Fox, go suck a d*ck and be happy. Might make the world a much safer and happier place for both of us.

Glenn Beck Goes Full McArthy

Poor Becky. The upcoming "One Nation March" in DC is evidently worrying him so much he's gone into full red scare mode. Could his own 90,000 fake populist rally last month soon be totally made the bitch of a much bigger rally of non-wingnuts who really do represent the people? Panic in the propagandadrome... quick, pull on a fedora, pretend it's 1953... and make out like they're all commies:

And what I told you to do last night is go to CPA — CPUSA's Website, Communist Party USA. Radical ideas — you go there. Now, just a couple of clicks, you click there, right on their front page, One Nation join the movement today, and you will see the Young Communist League is organizing for One Nation Working Together in the rally in D.C.

So there's a sprinkling of communists and socialists among the many groups listed as backers on the One Nation March site? So that means the whole thing's one big Marxist conspiracy? Hmm... so if Beck's Restoring Bullsh*t rally attracted 90,000 fat white guys with t*ts and represented the "true voice of America", what happens if, say, twice that many people attend the One Nation March? I guess Becky will get hoisted by his own rhetorical petard unless he can figure out a way to explain how Marxism doesn't represent the will of the American people. Oops... why does Becky hate America? Cuz by his logic, we're all commies!

Face Tat Of The Day

David Jonathan Winkelman, also known to his buddies as that dumbass with the tat, was arrested Thursday night on a misdemeanor charge in Iowa. The resulting mugshot went viral and revived interest in the decade-old story behind dumbass's tattoo.

Back in 2000, a local DJ offered Winkelman and his son a "six-figure payout if they tattooed the KORB hard rock station's call letters and logo on their foreheads". Being dumbasses, the Winkelmans duly obliged. It wasn't til they turned up at KORB to collect their winnings that they were let in on the joke. How they must have laughed...

The prank did lead to an interesting lawsuit though. The Winkelmans sued the station claiming they had been "publicly scorned and ridiculed for their greed and lack of common good sense" - a kind of hate crime against dumbasses case. But they got the bum's rush from the judge who, being all edumacated n' fancy, probably had no sympathy. Ironic postscript:

"Since Winkelman got the tattoo, KORB has changed both its call letters and its format. It is now an adult contemporary station known as KQCS, Star 93.5."

That just seems to make the whole story even sadder for some reason.

Random Picture of The Day

My hat is off to the South Lake Union Trolley folks in Washington for ingeniously capitalizing on their name by selling merchandise to us snickering lovers of unintentionally smutty acronyms.

The Dark Side

The enduring mystery of Jimmy Carter Derangement Syndrome...

I don't know why, but something dark and masochistic within me made me check out the comments on the Yahoo news story about Jimmy Carter getting hospitalized. I don't know why I do it... Yahoo news commenters, after all, are some of the most brutal on the planet. What did I expect to find? Lots of "get well soon" messages..?

Obviously not. Seems many are taking the opportunity to whoop and holler and wish Carter a speedy demise. Maybe this shouldn't disgust and worry me. But it does.

What worries me is that Yahoo news is not some fringe portal of evil like, say, Town Hall or Drudge. Yahoo is a mainstream news site populated by average folks - bored office guys surfing the net while they should be collating expense reports, soccer moms whiling away the hours between breakfast TV and Oprah, old folks and regular Joes in general. Imagine, for instance, the mom who got her kids up this morning, put syrup smiley faces on their pancakes and kissed them goodbye... before firing up her Dell to share thoughts like these with the world:

"It would have been so funny if the SECOND WORST president in US history had choked on a peanut. But the phone call from the ALL TIME WORST 'president', the 'messiah from Kenya', made it all better with just one phone call, no wonder the liberals are estatic [sic] with the man-monkey from darkest Africa."

Or

"RIP Mr. Carter....oh sorry...your alive...its just that that picture of u makes me think that you died one month ago. Sorry about that. I did just buy your new book sir, will color it later."

Maybe I have a tendency to over-think sh*t, but it really depresses me that so many nice folks must be secret maniacs. So many ready to leap on the web to spew hate whenever a story awakens their dark side. This is supposed to be what people like me do... not normal people. These folks probably attend churches, PTA, you probably chat with them in the check-out line or wave when you drive by them in the street... But they're like secret pod people: Just give them freedom of speech and an anonymous internet identity and we go from Mayberry to Fallujah in the click of a mouse.

Tell me I shouldn't worry... Please reassure me that we are not being consumed by the dark side. Am I being an over-sensitive flower..? I think I need a hug.

(Related: Jimmy Carter Derangement Syndrome)

Random Picture of The Day

Errm... OK.

Quit Whining

Watch out progressives, Joe Biden's giving us the "don't make me pull over" speech...

How does Joe Biden motivate the disillusioned, frustrated, disappointed progressive base? Says CL:

Joe Biden tells the base to "quit whining" and get out there and "look at the alternatives. This president has done an incredible job. He's kept his promises." And last night on Lawrence O'Donnell's new show, he said: "Those who didn't get everything they wanted, it's time to just buck up."

Far be it from me to insult an old guy who I've always had a lot of respect for, but shut the f*ck up Joe. You ain't Uncle Joe yelling at us noisy kids in the back of the station wagon because we keep asking "when are we going to get there?" We voted you and Barry in on the strength of what you guys promised to deliver. But you ain't delivered sh*t. All you've done is roll over to Republicans, let the Blue Dog a**holes wreck your mandate and have offered nothing but half-cooked, compromised-to-hell bills that don't deliver anything close to the change you promised.

No, Joe, you quit whining.

Face Tat Of The Day

Notable for two reasons: 1) This guy was shot 9-10 times by cops in Lincoln, IL, but seems remarkably well on it. 2) The big tattoo on his forehead says "tattoo". So full marks for indestructibility super powers, low marks for imagination.

Just Another Day In Philly

Philadelphia: the north's answer to Florida... While cops were busy busting hookers on an Upper Darby neighborhood street, they also stumbled on a crazy cat lady with 20 dead cats in her freezer. Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood said "On one side, you got prostitution, on the other side, you got cats in the freezer, it's tragic."

But, looking on the bright side, one resident said "At least it's not drugs."

Bring Out The Guillotine

I have no particular opinion on the whole "Stephen Colbert Does Congress" media spaz-out. But everyone seems to be missing the biggest, most telling, most infuriating takeaway. His shtick was fairly uncomfortable and laugh-free until he signed off with:

"I trust that following my testimony, both sides will work together on this issue in the best interest of America, as you always do. [Audible laughter]"

I'm amazed that the smug a**holes in Congress actually had the nerve to laugh at that like it was some kind of cute in-joke. The implication that the average pol doesn't give a sh*t about the "best interest of America" and would rather blow a syphilitic hobo than "work together" with a member from across the aisle is funny to them??? This is like somebody laughing at one of those gross-out, dead baby jokes who actually does pop babies into blenders for real.

I have one question: where do we build the guillotine?

Greed & Idiocy

Those corporatist crackheads at the laughably misnamed US Chamber of Commerce are busy lobbying to bring down the "Creating American Jobs and End Offshoring Act". Basically, the Chamber wants to keep the economically insane tax breaks in place for companies who outsource rather than employ Americans. Like... wow.

Anyone who pays attention knows the Chamber is a giant scam and has nothing to do with representing the interests of anyone but the multi-billion dollar multinationals. But this might just be the first time they've lobbied so blatantly to screw over American businesses, workers and the economy.

This stuff is not rocket science. We are f*cked today because we've spent decades closing down manufacturing plants at home and shipping jobs overseas. We've focused on service industry rather than making stuff. And now even the service industry jobs have gone away because the greedy f*ck CEOs would rather exploit cheap foreign labor while they shovel more billions into their own bloated bank accounts.

But no-one's asking for the greedy f*ck CEOs to suddenly develop consciences. They don't need to be wrap their heads around noble ideas like altruism, social responsibility and contributing to the national good. They just need to employ some f*cking Americans so they can buy more of the crap they make. Or do they think they're better off selling $1,000 TVs in China where the average yearly salary is around $800?

Angle v. Reid Debate Fisticuffs

Nevada loon candidate Sharron Angle was booed and heckled during an hour-long Q&A session at a Vegas high school. Harry Reid too - though he sent in a tape to get heckled as he was kinda busy in DC disillusioning liberals. The debate was hosted by local Christian groups but the audience/mob didn't seem too shy about letting rip.

At one point, an old guy in the audience attacked a 27-year-old woman who had enraged him by trying to walk out while Angle was talking. Yup, that's right, a Christian conservative Sharron Angle supporter beats up on a woman. WWJD? Punch that liberal b*tch, old fat guy? I don't think so.

Irony Alerts

From AOL:

The British tycoon who owned the Segway company died after accidentally riding a rugged version of the two-wheeled machine off a cliff.

From Huffington:

A private company in Maryland has taken over public libraries in ailing cities in California, Oregon, Tennessee and Texas, growing into the country's fifth-largest library system.

How do you privatize a service that spends millions of dollars buying stuff and lending it out for free??? Wouldn't a privatized library be a book shop? Confused...

Then there's that Polish couple who used to be Nazis until they discovered they were Jewish. Says Haaretz:

Pawel said he was angry and scared at what his new-found Judaism would mean for his life. They believed Jews had no place in Poland, and suddenly this applied to him.

Like... oops.